Does ‘Work’ Have to Look Like Work to be Effective?

In my last corporate job, I was an Import Director. That’s corporate speak for a person who connects organizations to collaborate for collective benefit. Because I worked for an insurance company that wanted to sell more products than they manufactured, I searched for other insurance companies and agencies to partner with. When vital partnerships were formed, I led the team to “import” the products for our insurance agents to sell.

Doing this enabled us to either white label or co-brand products from other companies. These were products that helped us better serve our customers and enabled our insurance agents to generate additional income. In other words, it was a collectively beneficial connection.

When I started in this new role, my department of one didn’t have a heavy workload and I was often looking for new things to fill my days. I’m the master at creating something from nothing, and I went on to enrich my job as much as I could filling my days with learning, assisting other departments, and continuously monitoring the marketplace for competitive intelligence.

At the same time, I was challenged to be constantly on the hunt to find more work to do (and keep myself busy in an effort to be more “valuable”). One day, my CEO boss said something that jarred me a bit. He said, “I’m also paying you to think.”

What???

He went on to tell me that I didn’t have to obsessively fill my days with projects, reiterating “sometimes we need a break from work to take a walk, read a book, or have a conversation.”

Him telling me that he was paying me to think now stands out to me as work that doesn’t look like work.

I remember reading sales and marketing books at my desk feeling guilty that I wasn’t “producing” more. At the same time, the information I was taking in helped me expand my knowledge and become more proficient.

Lately, I’ve been stuck in this pattern where work is hard and must look like work. Sadly, work to me looks like putting in time at the “office” and sitting in front of a computer. It looks much more like hustle and grind than it looks like flow.

It’s imbalanced, ineffective, and anxiety provoking.

It doesn’t have to be this way.

Sometimes we literally need a new vantage point to see a solution.

I’ve found that the times when I feel like I need to “hunker down” and grind out more work are the exact times when I need a new vantage point. My best ideas often come when I’m dancing, driving, and connecting with others.

Once the ideas line up, putting them on paper and delivering, that’s the easy part. And, the work flows much easier when I’m not in an anxious state.

Abraham Hicks backs this up, stating, “Procrastination is the wisdom to not try to force something you’re not vibrationally ready for. Because if you’d done the energy work, you’d be feeling it. Procrastination is what aligned people do when they are not in alignment.”

The “real work” is in the alignment, not cranking out projects for the sake of appearances.

The real work is feeling good so solutions flow and creativity abounds. The real work is in the knowing that things are always working out for the highest good (even when it doesn’t look or feel that way). The real work is doing the inner work so things line up in your favor. The real work is in channeling the ideas that rain down into effective plans and moving forward with inspired action.

Tell me what work looks and fees like to you. Let’s dance!